Let's begin reading in verse
28. All these are the twelve tribes
of Israel. Those boys that belong to Jacob,
those each are a head of a tribe. These are the twelve tribes of
Israel. And this is it that their father
spake unto them, and blessed them. Everyone, according to
his blessing, he blessed them. And he charged them and said
unto them, I am to be gathered unto my people. Bury me with
my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite,
in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before
Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the
field of Ephron the Hittite for possession of a burying place.
It means he bought it from Ephraim. There they buried Abraham and
Sarah his wife. There they buried Isaac and Rebekah
his wife. And there I buried Leah. The
purchase of the field and of the cave that is therein was
from the children of Heth. And when Jacob had made an end
of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and
yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people. Now in the early part of his
life, Jacob was a very weak believer. He was a believer saved by God's
grace, but he was a very weak believer. Jacob made some poor
decisions and it cost him dearly. It cost him dearly. Very, very
bad decisions. He said this of himself. He said,
few and evil have the days of the years of my life been. And
I've not attained unto what my fathers attained to in the days
of their pilgrimage. He was a weak believer early
in his life. But God gave Jacob dying grace. Throughout all his days, he was
a chosen child of God. He was redeemed in Christ his
surety, with Christ as his surety. He was a chosen, regenerated,
saved child of God. And so God preserved him, even
when he was weak. But in his dying day, God gave
him grace. He gave him dying grace. So that
Jacob was more faithful in those last days of his life than he
was even in those early days of his life. Now, Scripture says
of Christ, having loved His own, He loved them until the end.
Our Lord taught His disciples, bearing witness of Himself, teaching
them who He is, what He was going to do, where He was going, even
right up until the time when He was betrayed in the Garden
of Gethsemane. He loved His own and He loved
them to the end. And what we see here in Jacob,
As we see a believer by God's grace, by the Spirit of Christ
dwelling in him, we see him loving his own and bearing witness of
Christ right up until the end. This is what he was doing. He
was bearing witness of Christ to the very last breath he took. Now, I pray that if God will
let me die the way that Jacob died with all my children around
me, I pray God would give me this kind of grace to bear witness
of Him right to the day I take my last breath. Now, first of
all, Jacob loved his sons by declaring to them the Word of
the Lord. He loved them until the end by
declaring to them the Word of the Lord. It says, verse 28,
It says that their father spake unto them and blessed them, every
one according to his blessing he blessed them. Jacob was not
speaking his own word when he blessed them. When he gave them,
each one of them those blessings, telling them what would happen
to them in the future, he wasn't speaking his own word. He was
speaking as God's prophet. He was speaking as the head of
his house, as the priest of his house, and he was speaking the
word God gave him to speak, the blessing God told him would come
upon his children. And so what he spoke was the
word of the Lord. It wasn't his own word. That's
how he blessed them. And that's the only way sinners
will be blessed, is by you and I speaking the word of the Lord
to them. To love somebody, To truly love
somebody is not to speak our own word to them. It's not to
speak lies to them. It's not to take the offense
out of the cross. It's to tell them the truth according
to the Scriptures. That's how you love somebody.
Ephesians 4 says, speaking the truth in love. Speaking the truth
in love. That's how we're grown up into
Christ who's the head of His body. And it's by Christ. speaking
the truth in love. Psalm has said, Blessed is the
man to whom the Lord will not impute iniquity. He won't impute. He won't charge iniquity to him
because by Christ's blood, he has none. He has no iniquity. God won't charge what's not real.
And he won't impute iniquity to his children because we have
no sin because Christ put it away. But here's what else it
says. and in whose spirit there is
no God. There's no deception. There's
no altering of God's Word and lying about God's Word and lying
about the truth of Christ. Why? Because by that same one
who redeemed us, he now dwells in his children and gives us
his spirit so that now we have the love of God in our hearts
and we'll speak the truth of God to people. That's what it
is to be born of God. It's to have no iniquity so that
God won't impute iniquity to you, but it's also to have a
spirit which is truthful, which wants Christ to have all the
honor and the glory so that in that spirit there is no guile.
In Romans 12, 9, Paul said, let love be without dissimulation. Cleave, abhor that which is evil
and cleave to that which is good. And that's what the child of
God, born of the Spirit of God, will do. He will love the truth
and declare the truth so that he's not trying to divide the
truth from Christ and divide his people from Christ and divide
his people from one another. That's dissimulation. And love,
true love is not dissimulating. True love cleaves to that which
is true and that which is good and abhors that which is evil.
If it doesn't honor Christ, we abhor it. That's the spirit of
God working in a man. And so that's what made Paul
tell the Ephesians when he was leaving, he said, I kept back
nothing that was profitable to you. I didn't keep back anything
profitable to you. But I've showed you and I've
taught you publicly from house to house, testifying both to
the Jews and to the Greeks. It doesn't matter who the audience
is. He said, I testified to every man alike, Jew and Gentile, repentance
toward God, repentance from your dead works, from your flesh,
from trusting in you, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ who
is all salvation. Now that's what it is to speak
the truth. You remember me telling you this illustration? I said
that, you know, the sharper an axe is, the less strength you
have to use to chop the wood. If your axe is sharp, you don't
have to use a lot of extra strength. And one of the reasons you see
these so-called churches in our day using all these extra means
and all these man-made methods to try to get people in the church
and keep people in the church is because they're not preaching
the Word of the Lord. They're not preaching the truth
clearly, plainly, boldly. The sharper the axe, the less
effort you have to make. You wouldn't need all that extra
stuff if you just stood up, preached the truth of Christ. Well, I
found a scripture that supports that illustration. It said this,
Ecclesiastes 10.10 says, If the iron be blunt, and he do not
whet the edge, then must he put to more strength. In other words,
if the axe is dull, If the gospel being preached is dull and takes
the truth out of it, you got to use a lot of extra man-made
strength and it won't accomplish anything. You ever try to cut
wood with a dull axe? You don't cut yourself with a
dull, with a sharp knife, you cut yourself with a dull knife
because you're trying to put forth extra effort and you end
up slipping and cutting yourself with it. Well, the same is true
of the gospel. We need a sharp gospel. We need
the truth of the gospel. And he says, but wisdom is profitable
to direct. You preach the truth, it will
be profitable. It will be profitable. And so
God says to the law and to the testimony, if they don't speak
according to this word, it is because there is no light in
them. Their spirit is full of guile.
That's why they don't preach it. But if they preach this word,
God said, it's because I've put a spirit in them that has no
guile. It makes them honest. It makes
them preach God's word, not their own. Now that's what Jacob did.
That's how he loved his brethren, his children. He taught them
the word of the Lord, not his own word. God give us grace to
preach this word and bear witness of this word to everybody who
will listen, rather than speaking our own word. Just trust God. Just trust God and speak what
He says. And watch and see what happens.
Alright? Secondly, Jacob loved his sons
by declaring God's faithfulness in Christ. He bore witness of
the truth and he declared God's faithfulness in Christ. Look
here at verse 29. He charged them and he said unto
them, I am to be gathered unto my people. I am to be gathered
unto my people. He's telling them, I'm about
to die. I'm about to die, and I'm about to be gathered to my
people. Now Jacob is not speaking merely here of his body being
carried back to Canaan. He's going to talk about that
next, but right here, he's not talking about that. What he's
talking about here is he's about to immediately, when he dies,
go to be with his people. That's what he's telling them.
And by that, he's showing them God is faithful. God's going
to do for me exactly what He promised. He's going to gather
me to my people. The moment I take my last breath,
He's gathering me to my people. You see, this body of flesh is
not the believer. The old nature that's about,
that's not the believer. That's not the believer. The
child of God is the new man. That's been created by Christ,
through the Gospel, by the Spirit of God, by His blood. That's
the new man. Christ in you. But due to our
fall, this body, this old nature is dying. It's dead and it's
dying and our body will soon go back to the dust. That's the
curse. Go back to Genesis 3. Genesis
3. Death. Listen carefully to me
now. You ever wonder why life is hard?
Death and everything painful and everything sorrowful in this
life is due to the sin and spiritual death of every man in Adam. That's
what it's from. The curse God pronounced is due
to Adam's sin. And here it is in Genesis 3,
17. Unto Adam he said, because thou hast hearkened unto the
voice of thy wife, instead of hearkening to the voice of God.
You hearken to the voice of your wife, and you've eaten of the
tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of
it. Because of this, curse it. It's
the ground for thy sake. In sorrow shalt thou eat of it
all the days of thy life. Thorns also and thistles shall
it bring forth to thee. And thou shalt eat the herb of
the field, in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till
thou return unto the ground. For out of it was thou taken,
for dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return. You see, when
you come down to it, Everything painful, everything sorrowful,
everything that makes you sweat, everything that makes this life
hard and difficult is due to sin. It's due to rebellion against
God. That's what it is. One time my
grandmother was taking a dish to a lady, a neighbor. And her
arm was in a cast. My grandmother's arm was in a
cast when she did it. And my grandmother was in a hurry.
And she was just dropping this dish off. And the lady asked,
she said, what happened to you? And my grandmother didn't feel
like going into the details. And so she answered, she said,
it's just sin. It's just sin. And that's what it is. That's
what it is. It's sin. It's due to sin. The child of God, though, is
the new man. The body is going to go back
to the dust because it's sin. But the new man, created of God,
created by Christ, dwelling in the child of God, that's eternal. That's eternal. And when God's
child puts off this body of death, we shall immediately be gathered
unto our people. Immediately. Go over to 1 Corinthians
chapter 1. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Mark 1 Corinthians 1. I'm going
to come back here in a moment. Look at verse 4. Paul said, I
thank my God always on your behalf for the grace of God which is
given to you by Jesus Christ, that in everything you are enriched
by Him. In all utterance and in all knowledge,
even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you." That's
how we have everything, is by God's grace through Christ. "...so
that you come behind in no gift, waiting for the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ." Now watch this. "...who shall also confirm
you unto the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our
Lord Jesus Christ." What was Jacob telling his children when
he told them this? And what are we telling sinners
when we tell them this? Look at verse 9. God is faithful. God is faithful. By whom you
were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our
Lord. Look at 2 Corinthians 4 and verse
16. 2 Corinthians 4, 16. He says, for which cause? For
which cause we faint not? Let me get to it, 416. For which
cause we faint not, but though our outward man perish, yet the
inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction,
that's what this life is, just a light affliction, It's just
for a moment, but it worketh for us a far more exceeding and
eternal weight of glory. While we look not at the things
which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things
which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not
seen are eternal. For we know that if our earthly
house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building
of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly
desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven.
If so be that being clothed, we shall not be found naked.
For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened. Not
for that we should be unclothed but clothed upon. That mortality
might be swallowed up of life. We're looking for that day when
we don't have this mortal flesh anymore and this sin anymore.
When we will be immortal and eternal and be gathered to our
people. Look here. that mortality might
be swallowed up of life. Verse 5, Now he that hath wrought
us for this self-same thing is God, who also has given us the
earnest of the Spirit. We know it's going to happen
because we have the Spirit of God, believer. Therefore, we're
always confident, knowing that while we're at home in the body,
we're absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by
sight. We're confident, I say, and willing, rather, to be absent
from the body and to be present with the Lord. That's what Jacob
is saying. When I am no longer in this body,
and this body is just a lifeless shell, know this, my sons, I
will be gathered to my people. I will be present with the Lord
immediately. Now, sinner, can you say that? You're sitting here now without
Christ. You're not confident of this. You're fearful of death
because you don't know what's going to happen. God's people
know what's going to happen because God is faithful. We're going
to be delivered from this body of death and be present with
the Lord because of Christ's precious blood. God is faithful
to us. He will confirm us to the end
and bring us into his presence. Now who is this people he's talking
about? I'll be gathered to my people. In Hebrews 12.23 he tells
us, It's the general assembly and church of the firstborn which
are written in heaven. It's God the judge of all. It's the spirits of just men
made perfect. And it's Jesus Christ the mediator
of the new covenant. Immediately we're going to be
with God and with all the saints made perfect in spirit and we'll
be with Christ our mediator. Why? Because God is faithful. God is faithful. That's what
Jacob is bearing witness to. God is faithful. My sons, don't
cry, don't fret. When I'm gone, I'll be with my
people. God is faithful. Now thirdly,
I mean lastly, Jacob loved his sons by giving them something
to remind them of this promise in Christ, of God's promise in
Christ. Look at verse 29. Concerning his body, he charged
them, verse 29, he said, Bury me with my fathers in the cave
that is in the field of Ephraim the Hittite, in the cave that
is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the
land of Canaan, which Abraham bought. You see that? Which Abraham
bought. This field, this cave that Abraham
bought with the field, and he bought it of Ephraim the Hittite
for a possession of a burying place. Abraham bought this so
that he owned it, he possessed it, and he bought it for a burying
place. There they buried Abraham and
Sarah, his wife. There they buried Isaac and Rebekah,
his wife. There I buried Leah. The purchase
of this field and this cave, this was purchased by Abraham. It was bought from the children
of Heth. And so by charging his sons to take his body back to
this place and reminding them this place was bought. This place
was bought. He's reminding them of God's
promise to Abraham and to his seed. He's reminding them of
God's promise to Abraham and to his seed. The whole time they're
going together. He told them, y'all go together.
All these sons go together to carry my body back. because he
wanted them to remember the promise God gave to Abraham and to his
sons. Jacob gave them this to remember
the promise. Now, what was the promise God
made to Abraham? The Lord said to Abraham, took
him up on this mountain and showed him all this land, and he said,
All the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it. I will give it to you freely
and to thy seed forever. I'm going to give it to you.
Now that land of Canaan was a type, it was a picture of heaven and
heaven's glory, of being with Christ, of being with his people.
Abraham never possessed that land. Did you know that? He never
possessed that land. God was speaking something spiritual
to Abraham and teaching him something spiritual. He was showing him
this land right here is a picture of heaven. And I give heaven. I give it freely to my people. And the reason I'm going to give
it freely to my people is because I'm going to give it to your
seed, Abraham. Now, a lot of modern translations,
this is why I don't like the modern translations, a lot of
the modern translations change that word seed to children, and
that's not what it means. That's not what it means. The Scripture, He said, to thee
will I give it and to thy seed forever. And in Galatians 3.16,
speaking under the Spirit of God, Paul tells us what that
word seed means. He said not to seeds as of many,
not plural, not your children. He said, I will give it to your
seed, to thy seed, which is Christ. That seed is Christ. How was
he Abraham's seed? Because he came after Christ.
He came through the lineage of Abraham. But here's what he's
telling him. In eternity, God promised to
glorify Christ His Son, and to give Him all the glory that belongs
to Him, because Christ came forth and fulfilled God's will. He
purchased His people by His own blood. He redeemed His people
by His own blood. And God the Father promised Christ
that when you have accomplished this work, I'm going to glorify
you. I'm going to give you everything to possess. I'm giving you everything
and you'll possess it all, including all the people you purchase."
And so then God came forth to Abraham and He says, you see
this land, Abraham? It's a picture of heaven. It's
a picture of glory. I'm going to give glory to you
And I'm giving it to Christ, your seed, forever. And the reason
Abraham got it, and the reason all of God's elect receive it,
is because he gave it to Christ. Because Christ fulfilled the
will of the Father. And He's the Son of God who inherits
all. And He makes us joint heirs with
Him. That's the spiritual picture
He was telling us. And so then Jacob tells them
this now. He says, that cave in that field
there was purchased by Abraham. Over and over there he mentions
Abraham purchased that field. He bought that field and he bought
that cave. He bought it. He purchased it.
He bought it. And he says, and there is where
all his elect were buried. They were all buried there in
that place. That place that Abraham purchased. When he bought that field, Abraham
set forth a beautiful picture of what Christ did for his people.
You can find it in Genesis 23. I almost just preached from this
this morning because it's so beautiful. But I don't have time
to go there and read it. But let me give you the highlights
of it and you can go read it yourself. Abraham bought that
field to bury his people. He bought it to bury his people.
And in that, he shows a picture of how Christ conquered death
and bought all his people and bought this earth and this world
and heaven and earth, all the universe. He bought everything.
And he bought his people. And he conquered death for his
people. It's a picture of that. Abraham was a stranger in that
land where he was among the children of Heth. Children of Heth. Heth
means children of terror. Children of terror. And Abraham
was a stranger there, where he was in that land. Well, brethren,
Christ, when He came to this earth, He was a stranger in this
land. And He was living among the children of terror, children
of sin, when He came here. And then Abraham, when he bought
this land, you know where he went to buy it? He went to the
same place that Boaz went. He went up to the gate of the
city. That place where judgment was settled. That place where
all judgment is settled. He went there to purchase this
field before everybody. So it'd be known by all that
he bought it legally. It's his. Well, Christ went to
the cross of Calvary and that's where He purchased His people
with His own blood. And when He purchased His people,
He bought the whole world. He bought everything. Everything
is His. He bought the field and the cave
and all the fields and all the caves, including His people. And He did it at the seat of
judgment. There on the cross is where God judged His people.
You want to see the judgment day of the believer? The judgment
day of all God's elect? Look at Calvary's cross. That's
where our judgment was settled. God poured out judgment upon
Him in the place of His people so that now justice is satisfied
and there is no more judgment to be poured out on His people.
That's the good news of the gospel. That's the good news of substitution.
Christ bought us. He purchased us. And He did it
by justifying us from all iniquity. And then when Abraham went up
to that gate of judgment and bought that field, When he went
up there, you know what they called him? They called Abraham
a mighty prince. That's who Christ is. He's the
mighty prince. He's the prince of peace. Because
he conquered all our enemies and brought in peace for his
people. And when he got there to buy this field, Abraham got
there to buy this field and this cave, they tried to give it to
him. Even the king of that land said,
you take your pick of our choice of sepulchers and we'll give
it to you. Now that seemed very nice and I guess it was nice
for them to say that to Abraham, but spiritually it would not
have been good. Because you remember when the
devil told the Lord, if you bow down and worship me, I'll give
you everything. I'll give you everything. But Abraham would
not have them give him that field and that cave. He said, no, I'll
buy it. I will purchase it. And he bought
it for 400 pieces of silver, 400 shekels of silver. And it says it was made sure
unto Abraham for a possession. It was made sure when Abraham,
in front of everybody, gave them that purchase price and bought
that field and bought that cave, that purchase was made sure and
it became Abraham's possession. Christ would not have anything
given to Him. He went to the cross and He paid
the purchase price, which was His own life. He paid the purchase
price. And when He purchased that people,
that God sent Him to purchase, it became sure to Him for a possession. We're called in Ephesians 1,
Christ purchased possession. He bought us. That's what redemption
is. To buy back by a price so that
you own it. And Christ purchased His people.
And when He purchased His people, He bought everything. He owns
everything. It's His purchased possession. And so in that place that Abraham
purchased, all God's elect were buried there. Abraham and Sarah,
Isaac and Rebekah, Leah was buried there. It's a picture of God's
elect being buried in that field, in that cave, in that land that
Abraham purchased. Brethren, Christ purchased all
His elect by His blood and Christ even purchased our burying place. It doesn't matter where you are
in this world. When you die as a believer and are buried in
this world, you're buried in a place Christ purchased, that
He bought. And here's the spiritual significance
of what it's telling us. The everlasting covenant does
not rot in the grave. After these bodies have long
turned to dust, Christ will not forget our bodies. He will not. The covenant of redemption holds
strong as ever in the grave. We're going to go in spirit and
be with Him immediately, be gathered to our people. But what about
our body? He redeemed it too. He bought
it too. Well, He bought the place where
it's going to lay, wherever it lays. He owns it. So here's the
meaning. Go to 1 Corinthians 15, 52. This
is what Jacob's reminding his sons of. And I believe they saw
this more than we give them credit for seeing it because they were
taught by the Spirit of God. They might not have seen it as
clearly as we do, but they understood something of what this meant.
It was a picture. Everything was symbolism that
God used. 1 Corinthians 15, 52. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at
the last trumpet. The trumpet shall sound, and
the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For
this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal
must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall
have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on
immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written,
Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin. Christ
put the sin away. And the strength of sin is the
law. Christ satisfied the law. Thanks be to God, which giveth
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. That's why the
Apostle Paul says life is ours and death is ours. If we belong
to Christ, life is ours and death is ours. Death, death's a good
thing for a believer. It's a good thing. It's the first
day of your life, really. Now, to die like this, brethren,
to die bearing witness of Christ to the end, that's grace. That's dying grace. When my grandfather
died, Oh, it was a mess. It looked like a William Faulkner
novel when my grandfather died. There was stuff going on in the
house. They were replacing the door
and there was noise and banging and sawing and this one carrying
on, that one carrying on. It was just all kind of distraction,
everything going on. And he was laying in the living
room in a bed. And every now and then he'd just look over
at me in motion like this, you know, and I'd walk over there
and he'd tell me something out of the Scripture. And I'd sit
there a little while and he'd lose his strength, you know,
and sit there. All this noise racket going on, a little while
he'd call me over and he'd tell me something else. Needful things. That's dying grace. To bear witness
of Christ right to the end. Right to the end. Look here,
verse 33. And when Jacob had made an end
of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, yielded
up the ghost, and He was gathered unto His people. Amen. Let's stand together. Father, we thank You for Your
Word. Make us not to fear death. Make us, as Your people, to see
Your Word is true. Make us to see You're faithful
and make us to know that all your promises in Christ are sure
because Christ purchased us with his own blood. Give us this grace,
Lord, to die in peace knowing immediately we should be gathered
to our people and at last you will gather our bodies and we'll
be complete in your presence forevermore. Lord, teach this
to those here who don't yet know it, who are your people, who
are terrified and facing this time very soon. Make them to
see Christ and bow to Him and rest in Him. We ask it in Christ's
name. Amen.